


and in comes a ghost

by anakatieskywalker



Series: the spooksverse [2]
Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hal Jordan has Issues, because even though im allergic idk its a vibe, commitment issues, he also has cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 13:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30106509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakatieskywalker/pseuds/anakatieskywalker
Summary: Hal gets followed home from the grocery store. It doesn't exactly go how you'd expect... probably.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris & Hal Jordan
Series: the spooksverse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2215383
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	and in comes a ghost

Hal hadn’t planned on getting a second cat. Really. Taking care of himself and Spooks, the little midnight terror himself, was enough responsibility for him.

Carol had looked at him with enough concern when Hal had announced that Batman had bequeathed him with a kitten, and cited the many dead plants that Hal has murdered over the years as reasons that this was a bad idea. But, well, it’s been a year, and Spooks is a thriving little agent of chaos. 

A part of Hal wondered if Bruce had known the cat’s future personality when he gave it to him. With the amount of planning and meticulous research that Bruce does every time someone so much as breathes weird, Hal couldn’t exactly put it past him. Which is why having one cat was fine with him. Hal and Spooks got along great, even if his cat had decided that three am was playtime and Hal’s face was a Bop-It. 

That’s also why Hal has been trying to ignore the tiny presence at his heels for the last three blocks.

His hands were full already, literally and figuratively. Keeping Spooks alive meant begging Barry to make sure his cat was fed while he was off world, and having Tom remind him that his cat needed to go to the vet, and get shots, and paying an extra fee for his apartment to even have the damn thing in the first place. 

Except, well, the tiny thing has already followed him halfway home, and it’s getting dark out. He looks down at his shoe, where the small, white kitten has started gnawing on his shoelace while he waits for the light to turn green at the crosswalk. 

He should have known he was screwed the second the little thing followed him away from the box it was in outside of the grocery store. He should have known, instead he chose the safety of lying to himself, saying that the kitten would get bored of following him, a man who spent over fifty percent of his time in space. 

He lied again when he reached down and scooped the wriggling kitten up and deposited it in the pocket of the hoodie he’d stolen from either Barry or Oliver so that he didn’t have to worry about it going up the open staircase of his complex. He was just going to take it inside and then it would be off to the shelter first thing in the morning. Hal repeated it to himself as he gave the little guy a bath in his kitchen sink while Spooks perched on his shoulders to watch, and again when he made it a box to sleep in on his dryer, so that he could close it off from Spooks’ reign of terror in the night.

Hal kept lying to himself even as he begged out of drinks with Carol and Tom so that he could take the kitten to the vet. He lied all the way up to the point that he was sitting in the veterinary clinic, filling out the paperwork to add another cat to his patient profile.

_ Dammit, Hal was keeping the kitten.  _

He glanced down at the white ball of fur, wrapped up in that sweatshirt from the first night, the sweatshirt that he still couldn’t remember taking from one of his friends. He was keeping the kitten. It hit him almost as clearly as the piece of rebar that had been thrown at him in the last fight with the Justice League. Which meant that the kitten needed a name.

He thought about how the kitten had started getting along with Spooks, who had managed to pry his way into the laundry closet in an astounding feat of dexterity. It followed the older cat’s every move, slinking through the shadows of Hal’s apartment like a Robin in training. The thought caused Hal to snort, and the receptionist looked at him oddly. 

Hal returned to his paperwork. A name, preferably not one connected to his coworker’s proteges. He thought, and procrastinated all the way until his name was being called by the veterinarian herself, an older lady by the name of Sheryll. Tom had sworn that his sister said she was the best, that they took all of their pets there. 

And well, if Hal was going to be keeping animals, he might as well make sure they’re as healthy as can be. He didn’t want to go to some hack and end up devastated because something happened to one of the kittens he’d sworn he wasn’t going to get attached to. He wasn’t attached, at all. He just...spent time reading about the best food for cats’ digestion that you could get on a budget, and he bought stupid toys for Spooks because the cat was alone in the apartment a lot. That’s all. Definitely not attached. 

Sheryll looked at Hal like he wasn’t fooling anybody when he tried to act nonchalant while setting the kitten down on the exam table. Maybe he wasn’t fooling anybody. Or at least, definitely not her, as he left the kitten in a puddle of sweatshirt. Whatever, the exam tables were cold. 

The veterinarian looked over the paperwork Hal had filled out, snorting at the name he’d scribbled down, and humming when she saw that the sex had been left blank. It was a tiny ball of fuzz, and Hal tried not to use his ring for everything, sue him for not wanting to take a guess as to if the kitten was a boy or a girl.  _ He wasn’t getting attached, remember? _

“So tell me. Are you a big fan of Halloween?” She asked as she set the clipboard down, and moved to pet the kitten before starting the exam.

“What? No, I—what makes you ask?”

“Your cats are named Spooks and Ghost, Hal.” The tone of stating the obvious made him blush. Okay, so he hadn’t thought of that.

“This little guy followed me home from the grocery store, like a little ghost that chose to haunt me, so.”

The vet nodded, “Well, first I should probably inform you that Ghost is a female cat.”

Oh. Well, that was good to know. Hal had been just calling it ‘kitten’ and ‘it’ in his head. The rest of the visit went by in pretty standard fashion. Sheryll weighed the kitten, and talked about food, medicine, and getting her spayed at some point. Hal listened and asked questions like always, the information getting filed away for later through the white fog that had descended over his brain. 

Two cats, Hal had two cats, a boy and a girl. This was fine. He wasn’t attached, it’s  _ fine. _

Hal’s walking up the stairs to his apartment, his official new addition to his apartment bundled in his arms, a bag from PetSmart hanging from his arm when Carol’s voice carried to him from down the hall. 

“I  _ knew _ you’d taken in another hopeless stray.”

Hal glowers at her, but there’s no real heat behind it, “What are you doing here?”

“You skipped out on your chance to bitch and moan about the smurfs, I wanted to make sure you were okay. Guess I didn’t have to worry.”

“I—She needed her shots, okay?” Hal looks away, because Carol had a fair point, and he couldn’t be mad at his friends for caring. At least, not right now.

Hal draws closer, fishing for his keys in his pocket, while trying not to drop Ghost or her haul of toys and food. It’s a juggling act that’s eased by Carol taking the squirming bundle from his arms, and Hal turns to the door so that Carol can’t see the emotions running across Hal’s face.

He gets the door open, finally, and ushers Carol and Ghost in before him.

“She’s a cutie, and sweet. What’s her name?”

“Uh, Ghost. I decided while we were waiting for the vet.”

“Which means you weren’t going to name her, and then you realized that you weren’t going to be handing the kitten over to the shelter and panicked.” Hal was silent as he emptied the bags, methodically placing everything on the counter, and taking longer than strictly necessary to avoid admitting that Carol was right. He didn’t have to, the silence answered enough.

Carol sighed fondly and Hal ducked into the pantry to refill the container of dry food that he kept on hand. “How did Barry take the news when you told him that he would be taking care of two cats now instead of one?”

There was a bang as the back of Hal’s head met the shelf above it.

_ Fuck.  _ He’d forgotten about telling Barry.

**Author's Note:**

> ghost is not a real cat but i love her enough that she might as well be. also this was written for julie bc she's the best and she loves spooksverse. also shout out to destiny for telling me things cats do. <3 
> 
> leave a comment and let me know what you think!  
> or come find me at haljordangreenjedi on tumblr :)


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